When Flowers Sing: 3 Poems
First published in When Flowers Sing: A Poetry Anthology, in Autumn 2024.
Death in Hand
He tells me the bouquet is past
its prime. That may be, I say,
unbothered, I like the rot, the
tissued crepuscular phase beyond
the bloom of a brilliant evanescence,
and aren’t they all brilliant? Every
tender-tongued petal, each scrolled
leaf written in the scrawl of millions
of years, the slick stems holding chin
up, even after the cut. I am rapt by the
draining color waning from peony’s
febrile cheeks, the bowed head of a
tulip shattering against a tablecloth in
a pollen-peppered sigh is impressive,
if you ask me.
They are no more ashamed of dying
than a mushroom, knowing fully well
the circle never really opens to a line.
There is a twilit gasp at this hour, have
you heard it? The mouths of roses blow
velvet, unbuttoned, and I wouldn’t have
them do that in the dark. I’ll witness the
end, they were carved for pleasure. Oh,
he says, and takes a whiff of winsome
death in his hand.
Me-Nots
Every year in Spring I look for the
forget-me-nots on that hillside, on the
leeward side that tumbles into the
valley in a slip of green, shimmying
the goods for all to see.
Mary Oliver says, Beauty is not only
for us, and I haven’t heard a truer thing.
Climate scientists are striking all over the
map today, albatrosses calling a panicked
alarm, they are smart and know
where the land ends. The police are arresting
some, caging the warners, 100 guns to 4 sets of
eyes. The small and blue are truly perennial, may
they cover the ground in hope, may they fill the
skies as guides.
Wisteria
Here I am, blue & petal-soaked,
labile as a toddler trembling
in liminal steam, on the brink of growing
murderous, an untamed vine, I am twining
round words unspoken, choking
out the light, daring the dew to drown us
both. I once thought I could be a tulip,
elegant and refined, slim and smooth
and contained, fenced and happy, an exemplar
cultivar, rich in blood and long-lived even
when cut. But that bulbous head was lit
like a flame. I know now I am a wooden
wisteria, strong enough to kill a plum
tree with my sheer tenacity. I am practically
invisible in winter, storing up my insults, then
bursting fat with clustered rage in the late heat
of May. I am always climbing, branching further,
my whiplike tendrils waving for something to slap.
You are a creeping rose, but I cannot twist into you,
you, so sharp and stealthily biting while your victim is
enamored with your scent. My power is not pricking, my
draping saponin is not to be ingested, my skin is not to be
broken. No, I will not hurt if you train your touch, marvel
at my gifting pods, soft and spiraled with a fuzz of fruit, I can soften.
